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Hawthorn Thistleberry

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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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The Greenway, though in grave disrepair, still showed the way as we passed through the desolation of Minhiriath, though at times it was little more than a paving stone every mile and a shallow rut between them. While the road seemed to fade away more as we neared the Gwathló, its stones devoured by the increasingly sodden lands, the ruins we saw grew more prominent. We might see sections of wall, or crumbled cellars, or even an archway left standing with only a piece of the wall straddling it on either side. Shadryn’s enthusiasm for exploring these ruins was only increased as they became more substantive, and I had to set a limit on how long we waited for her digging at each one, or we might not reach Bree before winter.

It was near nightfall when we first caught glimpse, perhaps a half-league from the road to the west, a ruin that comprised enough fragments of wall to suggest the shape of an entire building, and even some small pieces of roof still spanning corners in places. Shadryn’s breathing quickened and she fidgeted in the saddle, anxious to explore, but before she could gallop off towards the ruins, I held up one hand. “This one, we shall pass untouched,” I decreed.

Though my eyes were on the ruins and I could not see her, I could hear her exasperation well enough that an image of the expression she wore rose unbidden in my thoughts. “But these are the most pristine we’ve seen yet!” she exclaimed.

“And do you see anything moving there, hear anything?”

“No!” she proclaimed with a hint of victory in her voice. “It’s perfectly safe.”

“But look and listen in all other directions. What do you see and hear?”

She swivelled impatiently in her saddle. “Nothing. Just birds.”

“Birds everywhere except at the ruins,” I said. “They avoid the place. Why do you suppose that is?” I turned to watch her consider this question.

“Perhaps they just don’t care for the stone,” she protested feebly, but even she could tell this was not a satisfactory answer.

“More likely there is some predator that makes its lair in those stones. It’s too dangerous.” Her stricken look pierced me to the heart, so I added, “There will be many more, my Lady. I make it not more than two weeks before we reach the great city of Tharbad, or whatever of it has not been washed away by the Greyflood.” But she had turned her back on me angrily, and did not speak to me when we made camp. She did not even deign to listen to the songs I played before the camp-fire.

* * *

When Elemir awoke me for my turn at guarding, I stood, stretched, and took in the camp. Darrien was snoring loudly enough to keep bears at bay, as usual, and Elemir’s voice joined that chorus almost immediately. It was some while before I started to have the feeling that something was wrong, but a tour of the camp did not suggest what it might be.

At least not at first. As my thoughts cleared up and I shook off the webs of slumber, I thought about the ruins. Shadryn seemed to be sleeping peacefully, with her bedroll pulled up tight around her, but as I looked at it, it gradually dawned on me that it wasn’t a cool night, and she was not the sort to feel cold at the slightest chill. I crept closer to her bedroll, and when I heard no breathing, I dared to pull back a bit of the bedroll gingerly, to find only a pile of her clothes and belongings that she had stuffed into the bedroll in the approximate shape of a woman, so she might sneak off without being noticed.

She had slipped out from under my watchful eye dozens of times on our journey, but never in so devious, nor so thorough, a way. She might have been gone for hours. I muttered a few words that a proper Captain should not know, and began to lope towards the ruins, dimly visible in the starlight. I was nearly there when it occurred to me I ought to have wakened the others, but it was too late to turn back.

The silent stones stood on the soggy ground as if they might topple over onto me at any moment, though I knew that, having stood for thousands of years, they would endure another night. No matter which way I faced, it seemed that there was movement from just to one side or the other, never where I could see it. The stars were miserly in their gift of light, and there was no moon to help them. It was not a place for shouts, but I dared to whisper Shadryn’s name, hoping she might hear and answer, that I might find her. Hoping nothing else would hear and find me.

At last I heard a muffled sound. In the darkness I moved towards it, and found myself in what must have been an indoor room, facing towards a corner where two mostly-intact walls met, and an uneven triangle of stone bridged the corner, a remnant of a roof. Some of the stones beneath my feet were more of that roof, long since caved in, allowing a hint of starlight within, but there in the corner, there was nearly no light to be seen, only the faintest perception of movement, so little I doubted my eyes. Had I not chanced to see, in the boggy soil nearby, some telltale scoops of dirt, the signs of Shadryn’s excavations, I might have moved on. Instead, I moved closer to that shadow-shrouded corner.

At last I could dimly see a shape. Shadryn, standing. No, not standing, but dangling. Her hands were above her head, and shrouded in spiderwebs which held her just a hand’s-width above the ground, leaving her no freedom to do anything but squirm and shimmy. More webbing had been wrapped around her head, a spiral of web that had made its way down to just below her neck, so that she could neither see me nor make any more than a muffled sound.

I took a step forward to cut her free, then stopped. Whatever had been shrouding her in webs must be nearby; it had probably only stopped in its work because of my approach. As slowly and silently as I dared, I slipped my sword from its scabbard and held it at the ready, then took another step forward.

The starlight abandoned me. Cast into sudden darkness, I raised my sword defensively, and thus, the spider, at least as large as a bear, that was leaping down from atop that fragment of roof, blocking out the light, very nearly impaled itself. It skittered aside, trailing a green ichor that seemed somehow to glow, or perhaps it simply caught the starlight in an odd way in the darkness. There was a horrific noise as it moved, plates sliding across one another, an odd sound midway between scraping and rubbing, accompanied by a warning chitter.

Though shrouded in web, Shadryn must have sensed the movement, or perhaps the vibration as the vast creature had launched itself from the fragment of ruins from which she dangled. She began to writhe all the more vigorously, dislodging a part of the incomplete webbing that covered her eyes and face. There was fear in her eyes, and something more I could not identify. Studying her gaze for only a heartbeat, I saw where she was looking, and turned to face that way just in time to meet the spider launching itself once again out of the shadows.

The battle felt like it lasted a day and a night, and the metronome of my heartbeat agreed with that assessment, but it could not have been more than a few moments before I fell back, ichor dripping from my armor, from the ruined pile of horrific limbs that was all that remained of the spider. The axe-like mandibles had closed around my arm at one point, digging into my armor and leaving deep bruises I could not even feel yet, but which would ache for days; but I had carefully watched for the stinger and knocked it aside every time until finally my sword plunged into the great beast’s midsection and it collapsed, twitching and finally lying still. I could not know if the spider’s venom was deadly, and thought it best not to find out.

After a few breaths and a moment for my heart to slow, I turned back to Shadryn, who still hung there, eyes wide. I crossed the ground back to her, watching for other spiders, though I did not expect any, as one so large as this was likely to be solitary; and at last came up to right before her, reaching up to pull the webbing from her mouth.

With a sticky handful of web in my hand, I paused. Her eyes widened again as I just stood there, leaving her in this state, so close I could feel her breathing against my cheek. I fixed my gaze on her eyes, and, still panting a bit from the exertion of the fight, my voice had the roughness of stone, but an edge of steel. “I told you not to come to these ruins.” She almost flinched, or so I thought, from these words. “Had I noticed your ruse an hour later, you would be supper for a spider now. You will,” I put enough force on this word to be clear it was not a question, “you will heed me when I forbid you from ruins in the future, yes?” But she could not answer, and I drew my hand back, leaving the web over her mouth a moment. I took a half-step back, looking her up and down, giving her a few moments for my words to sink in while she was still helpless. Then a few more moments, long enough to let her wonder if I might not leave her like this until morning, or perhaps just stay here watching her dangle.

When I was sure her thoughts were a jumble of fears, I finally stepped forward and, with one great slice of my greatsword, cut through the webs above her hands, letting her fall. Unprepared for this, she sank to her knees in the muck, and cast a resentful glare up at me as I sheathed my sword. I stepped closer, and reached down to her; she tried to draw back, perhaps fearing I might take some liberty with her, but relaxed when she saw the knife I’d given her, which I’d just retrieved from her belt. With a few cuts I used it to free her hands from one another, then I let the knife drop point-first, sinking into the ground, and turned to walk away, leaving her to remove the rest of the webs herself.

She was silent as we trudged back to the camp. When she didn’t object to leaving the ruins right away, despite the evident fact that the threat in them was now removed, I wondered if I’d made the proper impression. A few moments later, I saw a subtle motion from her, slipping something into her clothes, followed by a satisfied smirk, quickly suppressed when she saw me watching her, but too late. Before we even made our way back to the camp she was laughing off the incident, making it out like she’d never really even been that afraid, nor in that much peril. She even suggested she would have been able to work her own way free, somehow, and she seemed to even believe it, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I thought, at one point, I saw a little flicker of red light, but it would be several days before I knew this was more than a trick of the faint starlight.

* * *

(the story continues here)



Last edited by Hawthorn Thistleberry on Fri Jul 31, 2015 9:07 am; edited 2 times in total


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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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On the next day, we did not speak much of the events of the previous night. She did not even seem contrite in the slightest; on the contrary, as we rode, she seemed as pleased as a housecat full of cream. She laughed often, took to singing spontaneously, and kept entreating the rest of us to appreciate the beauty of the landscape. Her cheer was infectious; soon Elemir and her were singing together, her horse was nickering and prancing, and it even seemed that the birds themselves went out of their way to fly near to her, spin in the sky above her, and then wheel on their way. I felt like I should remain upset with her, or at least stern, but this mood was hard to hold while everyone around was full of laughter, and by supper I could scarcely remember the terror of staring down a horror under starlight.

There were more ruins, and in better condition, as we traveled over the next few days, and she did indeed seek to explore some of them and dig in them, but with only a fraction as much determination as before. For my part, I made a point of allowing it any time that there was no sign of danger, so that when I forbade it, my ruling would have more weight. And she did not fight me when I did forbid, nor did she sneak off to any of those ruins, at least that I learned of. It seemed she was content with whatever she’d found in the spider’s lair.

The riding was easy, though the weather was impetuous, with strange bursts of storm appearing out of a clear sky to pour rain and lightning for but a few moments before moving on, or sudden gusts of wind causing flocks of birds to abruptly wheel and scatter. More and more, the birds seemed to take an interest in us, particularly in Shadryn, though never threateningly; they would simply fly around us and move on. Occasionally a particularly brave starling would alight so close to Shadryn that I imagined it might perch on her outstretched hand like a trained hawk, if she but offered such a perch. These occurrences each alone seemed curious but no more, but as they continued to pile one upon the other, I started to mull over possibilities. The question would occupy my mind much over the following weeks.

* * *

In the days of long-lost Númenor, Minhiriath had been a vast forest, but the shipwrights of old had stripped it bare, and thousands of years later the land still showed the scars of that brutal harvest. But in some places, woods cropped up, timid growth of pines with clusters of maples and oaks at their center, or spacious canopies of beeches and poplars bending with the wind. We were nearing that part of the Greenway that ran nearest to the forest called Eryn Vorn, and though that woodland was some leagues away, patches of forest occasionally sprung up near the road, perhaps taken root from seeds that had been carried from Eryn Vorn on westerly winds from the sea.

I was pondering the curious weather as we rode peacefully through such a copse, when a short call from Darrien caused us all to pull up short. “Men,” he hissed, “more than a dozen, in the woods around us.”

There seemed little reason for men to be hiding there that would not be a threat. Still, as in Dunland, I hoped to avoid a battle if I could. “Hello,” I called out, and swung down from my horse, passing the reins to Radolf.

A large man with a bushy beard and hair nearly as red as Darrien’s stepped from behind a tree on the road before us. “Well met,” he said, but there was something in his posture that suggested something other than welcome. “The great highway here is ours to keep. Travelers may pass after they pay a toll.” But as he was speaking, his eyes had found Shadryn, and his words came more slowly. “I’ve no doubt you have something of value and beauty you could use to pay,” he concluded, with a leer in his eyes that set my teeth on edge.

With effort, I adopted a formal tone, keeping my hand from reaching for the hilt of my sword over my shoulder. “The Greenway was built thousands of years ago, by men of stature beyond that of you or me,” I said, allowing just enough of a pause after the word “you” to make it seem like I was going to end the thought there. “It was built to link the sister nations of Arnor and Gondor,” and as I spoke this name, I touched the White Tree on my badge of rank, “and though it has been long since these lands were left empty, if anyone here has a claim on its tolls, it would be a Captain of the Army of Gondor, or a Lady of the family of Prince Imrahil.” I affected a smile that had nothing of merriment in it. “But as a courtesy, we will seek no toll. Should you leave us to pass peacefully, we may all find the rest of our day is warm and without trouble.” The edge in my voice was plain, though my words allowed the man some space in which to withdraw without losing face, I hoped.

The bushy-bearded man considered my words a moment quietly, even the birds joining him in silence. Then a loud laugh bellowed out from him, and soon his men, now drifting into view all around us, joined in the laughter. One couldn’t be sure what the laugh meant, but after only a few gales of merriment, he gestured once, and then drew and brandished a thorny club, charging towards me. All around, his men followed suit, their intent plain; what they could not extort from his, they might take from our cooling bodies just as well.

* * *

(the story continues here)



Last edited by Hawthorn Thistleberry on Wed Jul 29, 2015 4:37 am; edited 1 time in total


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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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Oh no!! Cliffhanger!!

Hawthorn Thistleberry

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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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In the maze of trees, a fight amongst so many is a muddle of chaos, with combatants constantly weaving between one another. Only a well-trained Captain could keep track of the location of everyone in such a fight, but at times, such training only afforded more reason to become frustrated. One could see when some of one’s allies became separated from others, but might not be able to do anything about it, if enemies were interposed.

I could see, though, that Elemir was following his order to stay close to Lady Shadryn, keeping his shield in play to ward any blows against her. Having dismounted, he urged her off her horse that he might better shelter her with his shield. Radolf ran in weaving lines spraying arrows to one side and then the other, felling highwaymen with injuries ranging from painful to deadly, while Darrien stayed closer to me, switching between his bow and his knife and sword fluidly. My great sword was slower, but when it found a highwayman, it was not slowed by armor or bone, and that man did not rise again. But as I carved a path through the bandits, I could not reach Elemir and Shadryn quickly, as there was always another man between us brandishing an axe or spear. Indeed, the ebbs and tides of the battle kept carrying me away from them, no matter how hard I tried to fight it.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the blade coming before it bit, but I could do nothing. His shield raised high to knock an axe away from Shadryn, Elemir did not see it. So slender a blade it was that I wager he did not even feel it as it slipped between his ribs, at least until the point found his heart. His eyes widened. Later, Shadryn would tell me that he turned to her and said, “I’m sorry, my Lady, I have failed you.” Then he sank to his knees, in a moment that seemed to hang in the air and refuse to advance to the next.

Then his shield clattered to the stone of the Greenway with a sound that seemed like it might be heard in the White City. Shadryn and the highwayman that had stabbed Elemir both stared at it a moment. I let out a bellow that stunned the combatants around me for a moment, and made to charge towards her, but the bushy-bearded man appeared in my path almost immediately, his club almost finding my gut before my sword bit into it.

I could only watch helplessly as Shadryn took a step back, but I was pleased to see her next instinct was to slide her knife from its sheath. She wasn’t holding it correctly, though; as had been her first instinct on that night so long ago, she held it pointing downward. The highwaymen had lost his slender knife, perhaps still lodged in Elemir’s chest, but soon a short sword was in his hand, and he grinned as he advanced on Shadryn. She brought up the knife and he slapped it aside with his sword, causing it to fly through the air and be lost in the grass.

The burly leader of the highwaymen took a blow with the flat of the blade to his stomach that knocked the wind out of him, but only for a moment, and as I tried to get past him, he whirled and brought his club against my back, causing me to tumble forward and draw up short as I slammed into the bole of a tree, my ears ringing. I watched helplessly as the man with the short sword stepped closer to Shadryn, relishing her helplessness, unhurried. She took a step back and stumbled over a root, falling backwards and staring up at him. One hand reached back, casting about blindly for the knife, but instead her fingers found and wrapped around a sturdy branch, longer than she was tall, likely knocked loose from the tree above her in one of the freak windstorms that had been dogging our steps these past few days. The highwayman was hardly more surprised than I was when that branch came up in a surprisingly swift motion, connected with his forehead with a resounding crack, and came down with its tip in the soil, allowing her to gracefully pull herself to her feet even as he was falling over backwards.

Shadryn seemed as surprised as I was. Even Radolf paused a moment, agape, before letting loose another volley of arrows. She looked at the stick, making a contemplative sound, then lifted it and experimented with its heft. As she pivoted, another highwayman that had been coming up behind her, unnoticed, suddenly got the tip of the stick in the stomach and doubled over. She let out a little shriek, half of surprise and half fear, and spun around, her hair loose and flying around her shoulders, to make a retreat. Which brought the tail end of the stick, still trailing dirt, into the face of another highwayman, who slumped forward, toppling into her and knocking her down, landing atop her in a pain-wracked slumber.

By this time I’d worked myself free of the tree, turned, and met the bearded man coming at me once more. I ducked beneath his blow, for the moment focusing on him instead of splitting my attention to watch Shadryn, and brought my sword up to his gut, knocking him backward. He wore crude but effective armor, and for a few moments we traded blows, earning great bruises and soreness, but nothing life-threatening, until finally he’d taken too much and collapsed, spent.

I turned back to Shadryn, only to find her still spinning about, her branch clipping every highwayman that came near her. Some were only knocked back, dazed, to come at her again, but others were spilled to the ground, groaning. Perhaps half of these blows were clearly by her intent; though she was untrained, she had a grace, as that of a dancer, that seemed to well suit the leverage and reach of a staff. The other half were accidents; as if Eru Ilúvatar guided her branch to strike her foes even when she was simply spinning around to find one, or tumbling over in her zeal to dodge a sword. By the time three or four of the highwaymen were fleeing, the number still on the ground around her easily rivaled those bearing blows from any of the rest of us. Panting, she leaned heavily on the stick, looking in equal measure puzzled and pleased with herself.

* * *

In the panic of the battle, and the surprise of Shadryn’s staff-play, it had been easy to lose sight of the fact that one of the men lying motionless on the ground was of Gondor. As this came back to me I rushed to Elemir’s side. I knelt, my armor creaking, to hold his hand, and looked into his eyes. He was still dimly aware, but the light was draining swiftly from him, and he would not last but a few moments. Shadryn also knelt and helped me peel back Elemir’s armor, revealing the wound; her eyes darkened, as it was clear that there was no healing that could save him now.

There was much to do, horses to gather, distance to put between us and the site of the battle lest the highwaymen return, wounds to be tended; but there was time to lift Elemir into my arms, letting his blood stain my armor, and softly say to him, “You fought with courage and honor, and in doing so, you saved the Lady Shadryn and fulfilled your mission. When I return to Gondor I will bring word to your father in Pelargir of your bravery and service.” Tears were in my eyes as I spoke, but I kept my voice as strong as I could.

Elemir smiled faintly, and with no voice in his breath, whispered, “Thank you. Don’t forget, rosemary for fowl, dill for fish.” He grinned, then his eyes slipped closed, and he spoke no more.

We traveled half a day before we stopped to find a place where we could lay his body to rest. Shadryn found, in some nearby ruins, a stone we could lay at the head of his grave, and carved into it a faint impression of the White Tree, singing an elegy that the rest of our group joined in with as we piled soil atop him. We made camp a short distance away, solemn and silent, though I couldn’t help but smile a bit as I found myself pressed into cooking our supper, seasoning a plump partridge Darrien had snared, with liberal dashes of rosemary.

Too much, as it happened. It would take far more than a few words for any of us to come close to matching Elemir’s skill at cooking. For the remainder of our journey, every bland and dry meal was a poignant reminder of the sacrifice that Elemir had made, to fulfill his oath of service.

* * *

(the story continues here)



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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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As we rode silently north along the desolate Greenway, Shadryn was quiet for a few days, even taking little interest in the ruins we passed. Elemir’s absence hung heavily in the air. She guided her horse alongside mine and said, with a depth in her tone that belied her words, “I’m sorry for losing your knife.”

“Perhaps just as well,” I answered. “The weapon did not suit you so well as that staff.” I gestured to the branch which she still carried, and had since carved into a sturdy walking stick. “With some training I expect you’ll be much more effective at defending yourself with it than with any sword, and the extra reach is a boon for a warrior of less stature.” She started to bristle at this term, so I clarified, “By that, I mean one who is not as tall.” She nodded, mollified. “Perhaps when we stop for the night, I could--” I had been about to offer to train her in how to fight with it, but my thoughts had found their way back to the night I’d offered to train her in knife-play, and how that had turned out. Hastily I changed my direction. “I could… take a close look at the staff and see how we could improve it. For instance, it might benefit from a counterweight at the cap, to give it more speed on the spins. Plus,” I added, “such an adornment would give it an air of nobility, if it were made with sufficient artistry. When we reach a city, you could even have a gem mounted in it.”

She glanced at the staff’s tip, and nodded, her eyes brightening. “That would be a fine improvement,” she said, and then, hesitantly, as if afraid to give away a secret, she added, “I even have a gem that would suit it well.” I was about to ask if she meant back in Dol Amroth, but her hand was slipping into her tunic, and drawing out a red gemstone, flawlessly cut and shimmering with light within it that seemed to shift like a stormy sunset sky. Indeed, as I stared at it, I was sure I saw within it a jagged line of white searing light, an echo of a lightning-fall trapped inside the jewel. Before I could ask where this stone had come from, she was tucking it back into her tunic. “It’s a lucky charm for me, I’ve been carrying it for… for some time,” she said in a tone that suggested she was not ready to say more.

When we made camp, I spoke to Radolf about it, and he rummaged about in the tools and spare parts he’d brought for repairing weapons and armor. Though he apologized that he could do more with a proper forge, within an evening he’d cunningly fashioned a simple cap, with four adorned crescents of iron rising from it, in the peaks of which the red gem was suspended; the jagged flashes of light within it were caught and reflected by the curving metal, making shimmering waves of light that seemed to dance amongst the crescents.

Shadryn seemed entirely pleased with it, and spent some time practicing with it, swinging it about herself in elaborate dance-like whirls. Remembering what had happened at the copse, Darrien, Radolf, and I all kept our distance. We all had enough bruises from the fight to not want any more. But after she accidentally gave herself a few, she came to me and, with a hint of timidity in her voice, asked if I might show her how to fight better with it. I was just as hesitant as I agreed, and very careful while teaching her to keep a respectful distance. By the time we turned in, I felt sure that she would exceed my ability with a staff in short order. Perhaps in Bree we would be able to find someone with more experience in staff-fighting to train her.

As I slipped into slumber I mused on how far we had come. That day, had it only been three months earlier, in Dol Amroth, sitting on the fountain playing the lute in the dark before dawn, had someone told me I would be planning where to get the Lady Shadryn training in staff combat, I would have laughed enough to wake the Prince.

* * *

(the story continues here)



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There was the moment when our attackers realized they’d bitten off more than they could chew. There were only three of them, after all. Clearly they hadn’t expected Shadryn to be capable of dealing nearly as much pain as the archers, even if some of it wasn’t entirely intentional. When they withdrew, I was not satisfied, and motioned to pursue.

At least with the highwaymen it had been plain why, here in a desolate land, we’d met them. Those desperate men squatted in the depths of Eryn Vorn, making a meager living on hunting while staying far beyond the reach of any stewards, lords, thanes, shirriffs, or city watches. Most likely many of them would, if they were seen in Bree or Gondor, be thrown summarily into a cell for past crimes, but no such possibility existed in this remote wilderness. The occasional passerby proved a chance for a few coins, or whatever other spoils they might take by force.

But these three men clearly did not dwell nearby. They’d set an ambush for us, though they’d underestimated us. They had traveled along this abandoned way, presumably specifically so they might set up that ambush. Normally, if you ask the question “who might want to set up an ambush for me?” there is only one answer, or none. I reflected wryly on the fact that, so had our adventures unfolded these past few months, there were far too many answers to consider.

Of course, there might be Corsairs, men of Umbar so bent on their plan of conquest they might follow us all this way to capture Lady Shadryn. This was a puzzlement for me, and had been since first I’d received the orders. I understood, of course, why it was necessary to guide the lady safely from Gondor to a remote place, and why guards would be needed to face the dangers of the road. But I’d always found it strained credulity that my orders bade me to protect her just as closely in Bree as I had in Gondor against the Corsairs. If they simply wanted a noble-born hostage, they would hardly send men on a dangerous journey of many months just to find this particular lady, rather than seek another one closer to home, I reasoned; and yet the orders were clear.

Then there might be friends of the highwaymen, seeking revenge. Some of them had no doubt perished of their wounds, others were injured, and all must have felt shamed by their defeat. The same might be said of the Hebog-lûth, though that answer would only revive the question of why they had attacked us in the first place.

I could not set aside lightly that another answer might lurk in the mystery of the gemstone that Shadryn had, it seemed clear, taken from that spider-haunted ruin; who else might know of it, and know what power it contained? I had read of ancient artifacts cunningly fashioned by the Eldar, or precious stones unearthed by the dwarves in their halls, stones which shined with a power of their own; and in all such tales, the ancient talisman, whatever power it contained, also seemed to entwine fate around it, bringing ruin and despair to those caught up in its tale. One such artifact might draw to it evil creatures, another might seem to weave oddities of happenstance; but they all drew rivals, eager to seize the artifact, at the point of a sword, or worse.

Capturing one of these men might afford an opportunity to answer this question, I hoped. One had an arrow deep in his chest, the tip lodged through a rib such that it could not be easily removed; blood trickled from the side of his mouth. The second man, as he tried to run, caught another arrow low in his back, and when he fell I knew he would not rise again. The third hurled himself atop a horse and was in the distance before we could follow; there would be no catching him. I turned to the man with the arrow in his chest. “You might yet live if this injury is treated, and I possess the means to do so. If you tell me all of what brought you to ambush us, you will walk again beneath the sun. If you will not, the best you can hope for is a mercifully swift end.”

The man looked up at me and laughed. There was something familiar in his voice, which I could not place right away. “Is this, then, the honor of a Captain of Gondor, to torture and slay a helpless man? I would expect nothing better from robbers and thieves.”

I bristled; there was little that punctured my composure, save slander against Gondor. I might have done something rash, had Shadryn not placed a hand on my shoulder, bringing me back to myself. “You shall have mercy that you have not earned, through your brutal attack on an innocent woman. All that remains is for you to choose which mercy you will receive: the mercy of the balm, or of the blade.”

“We have much experience with the mercy of Gondor,” the man said, his voice dripping with bitterness. “But you threaten in vain, for there is naught I could tell you that you do not already know. The rightful king of Gondor was thrown down by insurrection and treason, at the Crossings of Erui. The time is nigh that the Heirs of Castamir will reclaim their kingdom from the vile worms, like you, who squat in its halls and soil its proud history. What mercy you give me matters not. There are movements that elude your eye, which ready to make right history. A desperate flight north to the ruins of Arnor will do naught to preserve the ruins of Gondor.”

His words were plain enough; he was either one of the Corsair scouts, or an ally or informant for them, though his tenacity, and the fierceness of his defiance, suggested the former. While I listened, I did not dwell on his view of history, predicated on the idea that Castamir had been a rightful king and not a usurper, and further, that some of his heirs survived the campaign of Telumehtar Umbardacil, to pass that dubious claim to the throne down to this man’s kinsmen. Instead, I focused on his voice, until I recalled where I had heard it before. At the edge of Dunland, at a camp made hastily and wearily, I had heard, or thought I heard, that same voice speaking to some of the Hebog-lûth. Had those wild-men been in the service of these Corsairs? Or had they, unable to slay us for reasons of their own, offered us up to the Corsairs so they could have their vengeance through another hand? Or was some third hand behind both?

Whatever it was, I would not learn it from this man. He’d been right that he could offer me no intelligence save what I already possessed. But I felt some need to refute his claims, even if only for the benefit of my men, lest they fall to wondering about the veracity of these claims. “The White Tree will blossom for the true king. If your so-called Heir of Castamir proves true, then let him bring forth his seedling. But if you’ve nothing to bring but hollow threats, then may they keep you warm in the storms that lash your coasts, for you shall have not the fires of Gondor to warm you.”

I gestured to Radolf, who moved to hold the man down in case he had the intent of some reckless action, then prepared a poultice and bandage. While I had learned a modicum of the healing arts simply by seeing my mother at work, and Shadryn also knew enough to be of help, his injury was grave; when I removed the arrow, the flow of blood that started was great, more than I could staunch.

He grinned wolfishly at the sight of the blood rising from his chest, and coughed. “Such is the mercy I expect from a squatter in the White City,” he growled with his last breaths. When he slumped down, I was still trying to stop the flow of blood, and Shadryn had to tug my hands away, insisting that I had done all I could. Even if the man had died thinking me devoid of honor, I still saw to it he had a proper grave before we continued on our way.

* * *

(the story continues here)



Last edited by Hawthorn Thistleberry on Sat Aug 01, 2015 5:39 am; edited 1 time in total


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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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Author's Note: The player of Shadryn has discovered a new staff to cosmetically equip that she likes better, and I have made a few tiny revisions to the previously posted parts of the story that refer to the gemstone (formerly blue, now red) and staff (different description) accordingly.



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The mighty river Gwathló is one of the largest in Eriador, carrying rainfall from lands from as far as the High Pass that connects Eriador to the Vales of the Anduin over the Misty Mountains. One might expect its roar to be as mighty as the range it touches; the appropriately-named Loudwater is but one of its tributaries. But where the Greenway crosses it at Tharbad, there is little to hear, and indeed, almost nothing you would call a river. Once, the books say, Tharbad was a great river port, with a deep enough draught to welcome even seagoing ships. But over the countless years, after Minhiriath was stripped of trees and then left bare and forgotten, the river lost its way. For a great distance, the flow bifurcates into smaller and smaller rivulets until there is little more than a fen criss-crossed in streams, so broad that the bridges that once spanned the river at Tharbad now have both ends mired in muck. Many of the bridges, and indeed much of the city, has sunk into the hungry mud.

We never heard the flow of water as we approached the ruins of Tharbad; instead, we just felt the ground get softer and wetter and harder to cross, until we had to dismount and lead our horses, lest they sink too far into the muck. Our progress slowed more each day, and we spent more time following weaving paths trying to find firmer ground, often reaching dead ends and having to retrace our steps. We’d spent days trekking through this bog and still hadn’t seen a hint of the ruined towers and walls of Tharbad itself, and there were few traces of the Greenway anymore, the paving stones long since sucked down into the eager muck, leading us to wonder if we hadn’t lost our way.

As it had been throughout Minhiriath, the lands were ever and always the home of great flocks of birds. If anything, there were far more of them here in the fens. But as the ground grew wetter we started to see more, and stranger, creatures. There were great flying insects, as large as a dog; huge, strange flowers in vivid hues, with dangling blossoms like bells; turtles so large that other creatures built nests on their shells; and strangest of all, beasts that looked like they grew from tree branches and vines, but which could walk, or perhaps shamble was a better word for it, as freely as any animal of flesh and bone.

As we made our way through the bogs, some of these creatures lurked nearby, observing us with what seemed like a clear sense of purpose, though we could not guess what that purpose might be. We came to feel like they were ready to take some action if we did something of which they disapproved, but what might such a being disapprove of, we could not guess. Shadryn found all of these unfamiliar creatures fascinating, but none so much as these ‘bog lurkers’, as she came to call them. She could not get close enough to one to study it; I would not allow it, and neither would the lurkers, as they kept their distance, striding across the fens as easily as we might cross a road of stone. But ever did she watch them from as near as she could, trying to understand them, determine what manner of beast they might be, and of what they were composed.

Thus it was that, one evening as we were separated into pairs seeking a dry place to camp for the night, fresh water that wasn’t a stew of mud and muck, and maybe something for supper, she got her chance to see one up close. Peering at the bog for forage, Darrien happened to find one of these lurkers, a very small one, that seemed to be injured. Shadryn was not far away as the crow flies, though given the twisting paths that avoided the hungry mud, it would take her some time to reach him when he mentioned what he’d seen. Eagerly, as she told me the tale later, she started retracing steps to reach him, while he examined the creature.

It seemed to him one of the legs was broken, and the creature was suffering. His experience with animals, especially horses, made him think it would not survive, particularly since it was so much smaller than the others we’d seen, perhaps a child. Or seedling, or whatever the right term was. Instead of the guttural clicks and humming purrs we’d heard from the lurkers before, Darrien heard sounds like the scraping of bark or broken bones, and soft, almost silent whimpers. When a horse is in such pain, and cannot recover, the mercy is to end its hurt; it is a hard thing to do, a painful thing, but a necessary and honorable one.

But as Darrien raised his knife, Shadryn stepped between them, holding her hand up, exhorting him to stop. Her call was urgent, and carried far over the emptiness of the bogs, drawing my eye. It was from some distance I had to watch the unfolding events, unable to cross the muck to intervene. Darrien’s arm was moving swiftly, to bring the creature’s suffering to an end as painlessly as he might, when Shadryn interposed herself, and to avoid injuring her he had to twist in such a way that he fell face-first into the muck. Even from a great distance I could hear him grumbling words of frustration that should never be spoken in the presence of a lady, not even a lady herself covered almost entirely in mud.

Taking little heed of Darrien’s discomfort, Shadryn turned toward the creature. She planted her staff in the mud so it would stand on its own, the red gem in it shimmering in a most curious manner. “It was as if the gem in that staff, and the creature, were speaking to one another,” Darrien would later recount to me in a tone of disbelief. With the ginger care of a mother tending her child, Shadryn lifted the creature from the mud and cradled it in her arms, stroking it with one hand while making soothing sounds. For my part, I watched almost dumbstruck; I had seen many sides of Shadryn’s spirit during our journey, but this was the first time I had seen this one. In the back of my mind I wondered if there wasn’t some hint of remorse still lurking in her heart for Elemir’s passing, urging her to save another life to balance the ledger.

* * *

(the story continues here)



Last edited by Hawthorn Thistleberry on Sun Aug 02, 2015 6:08 am; edited 1 time in total


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Tending to the creature’s hurts required us to spend two days camped at the largest patch of dry land we could find, which could scarcely hold us and our horses, but which was at least blessedly free of danger. Other than the birds which remained curious about Shadryn and came to watch her almost constantly, the creatures of the muck left us alone, while she passed the hours fashioning curious mixtures of herbs and mud and applying them to the lurker’s broken leg. Her treatments resembled my mother’s healing arts almost not at all, and she explained, when she could spare a few moments from her ministrations, that a creature more of plant than animal needed different salves, but was capable of recovering from more grave injuries, just as a tree might recover from a blow that would fell a man.

The delay did not please me. I was eager to find dry land once more, and to reach our destination. While I would never admit it to Lady Shadryn, I was myself eager for a warm meal and a pint of ale in a public house, and perhaps even a soft bed. Autumn would be coming soon, and I did not relish the idea of being forever damp in these fens as the nights grew colder. But there was no swaying her; Shadryn was determined to nurse this bog lurker to health. At the last, we came to a compromise; she described a sort of sling that might let her carry the beast while she hiked, and later when we rode again, and I set Radolf to crafting such a thing.

“Then will you bring this creature with you all the way to Bree, and keep it as a pet?” I asked her in a tone almost mocking, but clearly not serious.

“Perhaps I should,” she answered, and I wasn’t sure if she was teasing or not. “But it was not my intent. I expect it will be well enough to walk within a fortnight, perhaps sooner if my intuition about tinctures of sweet flag is correct, and then I plan to set it free to return to its home.”

I grunted in assent, relieved, but my eye caught a glimmer of red light, dancing from the gem to the lurker, unsettling and mysterious.

* * *

For as much ground as we could cover in these fens, we might as well have stayed at that camp. Day followed day, and we could never be sure if we’d advanced. The mist-shrouded ruins of Tharbad emerged from the morning fog in the distance, but however we walked, they seemed to grow no nearer, and afforded surprisingly little guidance in choosing directions. Shadryn seemed unperturbed, walking with her creature hanging before her as if in swaddling clothes, or clinging to her back; but I was growing frustrated, and also worried that we had lost the path entirely. What an ignominious end, to be lost forever wandering in a maze of rivulets and mud-hillocks, after surviving so many perils.

Though she continued to insist that it was her intent to let the bog-lurker go free when it could walk, Shadryn clearly was becoming attached to it. And to the extent that a moss-covered bole with spindly branch-legs could, the creature seemed to reciprocate, making that odd clicking purr more often when she treated its injuries or hefted it into its sling.

While she was examining the creature for injuries, she was forever making observations about its composition. For a creature made primarily of wood, as if cobbled from the makings of trees, bushes, grasses, and moss, it was surprisingly soft, particularly on the lower part of its main body, where the gangly branch-legs emerged from the compact, rounded body. Its upper surface appeared softer at a first glance, covered as it was with a downy grass from which small cattails emerged, but beneath this was a hard layer of bark, from which rose a spindly spike of heartwood. A bird might perch comfortably on the creature’s back, and in fact, many did.

It was while she was describing the creature’s curious composition that Shadryn brought up the idea of giving it a name, an idea which I resisted; if she named it, she might be less inclined to let it go when the time came. She took my reluctance as a challenge, though I’m not sure if she was being stubborn, or simply teasing. Sometimes these became one thing for her, and even she didn’t know where one ended and the other began. When, in exasperation, I threw my hands up and gave up trying to convince her not to give it a name, rather than accepting this victory gracefully, she continued to tease me. “I think I’ll call it Mushiebottom,” she said, “on account of it having a bottom that’s soft, all downy moss,” and as she said it, she watched me to relish my exasperation at such an undignified choice. I think she was only kidding at first, but that fey mood was still hung about her, stubborn and teasing in equal measure, and the more I wracked my brain for refined names, perhaps with a horticultural basis given the creature’s botanical nature, the more she dug her heels in and kept calling it Mushiebottom, clearly delighed at my reaction. “You always overthink these things,” she insisted, a criticism which drew me up short; I turned away, silently, and stalked off to brood over this characterization.

* * *

(the story continues here)



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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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Yay Mushiebottom!!! 

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I added a picture. 



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As much as I might have found Mushiebottom’s name hard to take seriously, and a reminder of Shadryn’s hurtful assessment of me, I would, in time, find myself quite grateful for its presence in our company.

When it could walk, with tentative and clumsy strides, Shadryn released it with great ceremony, but it did not seem much to understand her intent, and simply stood beside or behind her, bending forward in a long stretch and then rising to click and chitter. We spent some time trying to shoo it off. At first, it didn’t seem even to understand our intent, and when we finally got it to stand still while we left, it would keep coming back. This went on for several days, and it was made all the more difficult by the fact that it was a long, agonizing struggle to move any distance in the bog, but it could stride across the surface without effort.

After several days of this, we gave up. “It will probably turn back when we reach dry land,” Shadryn said to me in an attempt at reassurance, though there was something in her tone suggesting she did not believe it. Nor did she wish it; her affection for the creature, and its for her, had only grown with each day, and though she made a token effort to conceal it, she was evidently relieved every time it found its way back to her.

The ruins of Tharbad loomed off to our left, and I estimated that we were likely in the path where the river once flowed, when Mushiebottom started to behave in a curious fashion. Rather than trailing behind Shadryn, it started to move in front of her and then stop, blocking her progress and forcing her to edge around it. At which point it would simply move to in front of her once more. As the sun rose, it grew more insistent, even starting to shift to try to block her as she sidestepped it, causing her to frown in consternation.

It was during one such scuffle that Darrien called out, “Ahead, firmer ground, this way!” Indeed, the way had become less spongy. Perhaps the bog-lurker knew we were reaching dry land, and simply did not wish us to leave the lands it found most comfortable? Shadryn was forced to continue her dance with the beast while we led the horses up onto this spit of solid ground.

I was beginning to think we might even be able to ride again, a welcome thought after more than a fortnight of leading our horses, when Mushiebottom set to frantically chittering, and even bowed its head and bumped it against Shadryn’s chest, not forcefully enough to hurt her, but certainly enough to elicit a started cry. She stopped and stared, then the creature turned and skittered ahead, making its way to a spot not far from us and then stopping. It crouched and bobbed its bulbous body, drawing our attention, all the while making the same warning chittering sound.

I held up a hand to call a halt, then peered carefully into the distance. There was something at the spot where the creature stood, a dark, hazy shape. Was it warning us of some danger? Darrien was also staring curiously, wondering aloud, “What is that?”

In the end we could not determine what was there for certain without getting closer, and I felt that we needed to know, to progress safely on. But mindful that we might be being warned off, I did not dare let us continue on this course. “One of us will approach carefully, after stripping down to be as light as possible, to avoid sinking into the muck.”

“I am the lightest of us,” Radolf insisted, “so it should be me.”

“Surely I am lighter than any of you,” Shadryn objected.

“Indeed you may be, my Lady, but it would be best that the man who goes should be ready to defend himself should there be some peril there, and while you have learned much with your staff, I think it better to be a trained soldier. No, I shall go,” I argued, cutting off Radolf’s movement, “because you and Darrien can help defend me from here, but I have no bow, nor any skill in using one.” Intending to cut off any objection, I started to strip out of my armor. At Darrien’s insistence, I tied a long rope around my waist and played it out as I went, so they could pull me back if I became mired.

The ground remained firm, easier travel than we’d had in days, as I approached, sword drawn and with rope trailing behind me. Mushiebottom watched me approach, still standing sentinel, though seemingly accepting of this method of advance. “It looks like the remains of a horse,” I described as I approached, then gasped and stopped short.

“What is it?” I heard called at me frantically from behind, by several voices.

“It is a steed of Gondor,” I called back, not taking my eyes off the body before me. “I recognize the markings on the caparison, and the saddle. This horse came from the stables of the House of the Steward in Minas Tirith. It bore proudly one of the sons of Denethor, if I make the heraldry correctly, until it met its demise here.”

“What demise did it meet?” asked Darrien.

I crouched to examine the horse from a distance of a few yards. “It seems that, while the land seems firm to this point, it suddenly becomes greedy. There is likely some flow of water beneath the surface here that suddenly sweeps one into it. The horse thrashed in panic but this only made it grow more mired until it could not be saved, and it perished thus,” I called out, my voice bitter at the thought of the noble beast’s agonizing demise.

“And what of the rider?” asked Radolf.

I took some time to study the surroundings, while above and ahead of me, Mushiebottom chittered softly. “I see no trace of him. I cannot be certain, for it’s possible he was dragged so far under that nothing remains visible, but if I had to wager, I would bet that he was able to escape, and continued on.” I straightened up and took a few steps back. “It must have been an arduous journey for him, to be without steed and provisions in a land as bleak as this, but if he was a son of the House of Húrin, I would expect he might prevail over such adversity.”

As I made my careful way back, Shadryn said in a soft, awestruck voice, “This too would have been our fate, or worse, had we not been warned.” Her eyes were on Mushiebottom, who was now following me back to the others. I wanted to object to her assessment, but as I opened my mouth to speak, I realized I had no basis. What other explanation could there be for the creature’s behavior, but to warn us off from this deceptively inviting spit of solid ground? Reluctantly I had to concede the point; the creature had repaid her kindness by saving us all.

* * *

(the story continues here)



Last edited by Hawthorn Thistleberry on Tue Aug 04, 2015 6:06 am; edited 1 time in total


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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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For lore considerations, here's a quote from "Fellowship of the Ring", spoken by Boromir in Lothlórien:

`I have myself been at whiles in Rohan, but I have never crossed it northwards. When I was sent out as a messenger, I passed through the Gap by the skirts of the White Mountains, and crossed the Isen and the Greyflood into Northerland. A long and wearisome journey. Four hundred leagues I reckoned it, and it took me many months; for I lost my horse at Tharbad, at the fording of the Greyflood. After that journey, and the road I have trodden with this Company, I do not much doubt that I shall find a way through Rohan, and Fangorn too, if need be.'



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re: Ioreld's Tale: Into the Northerlands

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Another great chapter, I love how you've woven parts of the Lord of the Ring story-line into it. 

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Maeree wrote:

Another great chapter, I love how you've woven parts of the Lord of the Ring story-line into it. 

 You ain't seen nothin' yet. :)



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